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Sunday, December 30, 2007

Rain

There are always two ways to look at things, for example sometimes the glass is half empty, sometimes its half full. Rain is no different.

Yesterday, rain meant malaise and disappointment.

McQueen arrived the night before and with predicted warm temperatures, I was ready to take her out on the road for her debut. My schedule called for 2 hours and 20 minutes on the bike and I had made plans with TG40 and TG Diane to join them in their outside ride for the first part, then planned to head to West Creek and test out my new ride to finish my time. I had pulled up weather.com the night before and the rain was scheduled to end during the night. Perfect, my ride was set for 10 am. Around 9, it was still raining and TG40 called to tell me the ride had been postponed until 2:30. I decided to do a little post Christmas sale shopping at Talbots and around 1ish when I returned home, it was still drizzling, very damp and dreary. I felt exhausted and did not want to go out into the damp weather for a ride. So instead, I ate some lunch and took a nap. A perfect rainy day activity.

Finally, I woke up and thanks to my guilt of not riding with the girls and some motivation from my husband, we went downstairs to our bike room to ride our trainers. Two and a half hours later, I had finished my ride (the first hour and 45 minutes on the old bike and the last 35 on McQueen) and for the first time in my day, the sun actually came out. Perhaps it was the new bike, perhaps the inspirational movies we watched (the Replacements and part of Drumline) or perhaps the fact that I can feel myself get stronger as I push myself to new limits.

Today, rain meant strength and confidence.

As I headed out for my run today, it started to drizzle. Unlike biking in the rain, running in the rain has always made me feel strong and like a real athlete. Today was no different. My schedule for today called for a 75 minute run with a good warm up in zone 2, two 8 minute tempo repeats separated by 2 minutes easy in between and the rest of the time in zone two. After about 15 minutes into the run, just about the time I started my first repeat, the drizzle of the rain turned into a steady pour. It didn't matter. I was feeling good. Bon Jovi's latest CD was playing from my new iPod nano and my legs were responding to the faster turn over and drive. The second 8 minutes was a little bit tougher, but I pushed on and found my own motivating mantra for the year -- power. Power to push myself harder, power associated with greater confidence in myself and power associated with training with motivated friends. I finished my run in the pouring rain with a big smile on my face and a little spring left in my step. I had just finished a 75 minute run in the pouring rain. I rock!

After I dried off, had some lunch and snuggled with Lulu next to the fire, I had to motivate to go back out into the rain and head to the Y for my swim. I was dreading this workout. After a short warm up, the main set was 20 50s at a hard pace with 10 - 15 second rest intervals. After about 5 50s, I was breathing hard, my arms had started their burn and I wished that I had only 5 left rather than 15. But I didn't. So with each 50 I focused on a different part of my form, a strong pull, timing, good kick and repeated my new mantra many times. While my rest intervals definitely had stretched to 15 seconds, I finished and my cool down felt light and easy.

I'm back home, my workouts are done for the weekend and, its still raining. This weekend, rain has reminded me that there are two ways to look at things. Sometimes when training, I will face less than ideal circumstances. I need to remind myself to take another look. That same situation can be positive and teach me that I am stronger and more motivated than I often let myself believe!

So rain, rain, go away, but please come back another day.

2 comments:

margo said...

are you on the white lake schedule? i didn't know we had a 2 hour ride this weekend? yikes!

mcqueen is GORGEOUS!!!

TriGirl 40 said...

Great recap of your workouts.

And hope you've enjoyed the beautiful weather the past two days!